ARTICLE REVIEW

Tittle                      :    Why major in linguistics (and what does a linguistics do).          

The Author            :    Monica Macaulay  a linguist university of Wisconsin-Madison,       specializing in the morphology of American and Kristen Syrett Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS) at Rutgers University.         

Number of Pages                : 1-4

Address of Article website  : http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/why-major-linguistics

Monica Macaulay and Kristen Syrett. Why major in linguistics (and what does a linguistics do). LSA (Linguistics society of America) : 1- 4

      The article, "Why major in linguistics (and what does a linguistics do)," was written by Monica Macaulay and Kristen Syrett, a linguist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in the morphology of American and Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS) at Rutgers University. This article draws attention to how to become major in lingistics. In particular, the author refers to what exactly is linguistics, and what does a linguist do, what will study as a linguistics major, what opportunities will have with a linguistics degree. The article, however have any significant background, which could be, for example, explanation about meaning of linguistics, aspects of  human language, a variety of graduate-level and professional programs and careers. At least like that is mentioned in the text. 

     Particularly, the author appeals to recent research conducted by linguistics , which shows Linguists investigate how people have their knowledge about language, how this knowledge interacts with other cognitive processes, how it varies across speakers and geographic regions, and how to model this knowledge computationally. They study how to represent the structure of the various aspects of language (such as sounds or meaning), how to account for different linguistic patterns theoretically, and how the different components of language interact with each other. Many linguists do fieldwork, collecting empirical evidence to help them gain insight into a specific language or languages in general. They work with speakers of different languages to discover patterns and/or to document the language, search databases (or corpora) of spoken and written language, and run carefully-designed experiments with children and adults in schools, in the field, and in university labs.

     According to the data collected by the author, yes linguistics is science. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. By now you can see that while linguists may be better informed if they know multiple languages, the work of a linguist actually involves learning about Language, rather than learning different languages. Linguistics is a major that gives knowledge about aspects of human and behavior. Majoring in linguistics learn about many aspects of human language, including sounds (phonetics, phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics). It can involve looking at how languages change over time (historical linguistics); how language varies from situation to situation, group to group, and place to place (sociolinguistics, dialectology); how people use language in context (pragmatics, discourse analysis); how to model aspects of language (computational linguistics); how people acquire or learn language (language acquisition); and how people process language (psycholinguistics, experimental linguistics). Linguistics programs may be organized around different aspects of the field. For example, in addition to or instead of the above areas, a program might choose to focus on a particular language or group of languages; how language relates to historical, social, and cultural issues (anthropological linguistics); how language is taught in a classroom setting, or how students learn language (applied linguistics); or the connections between linguistics and cognitive science.

       Students who major in linguistics getting intellectual skills, such as analytical reasoning,

critical thinking, argumentation, and clarity of expression. Linguistics majors are therefore well equipped for a variety of graduate-level and professional programs and careers. Career Opportunities such as work in the computer industry, work in education, work in the publishing industry, as a technical writer, or as a journalist, work for a testing agency, work with dictionaries (lexicography), Become a consultant on language in professions such as law or medicine, work for an advertising company, work for the government, become an actor or train actors.

  

      The article by Monica Macaulay and Kristen Syrett interest first of all for student who majored linguistics. In particular, the data introduced in the article may facilitate better understanding about linguistics, study in major linguistics, opportunities will getting from linguistics degree such as career and job. But in this article not have detail explanation about  aspects of human language, including sounds (phonetics, phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics), there are not complete with mean from branches of linguistics here in page 2.

      However, what is remarkable about this article is the language in which it has been written. Mrs Monica Macaulay and Kristen Syrett managed to present insipid statistical data in an easy-to-read manner, diluting the material with quotations from insiders, and explaining complicated terms simply. In other words, the author’s professionalism makes the article unique among simple news stories.